


Going Home Again

by danceswithhamsters01



Series: Reddit Prompts [13]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Broken Circle - trauma awaits!, Companion POV, Gen, angry warden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:54:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/danceswithhamsters01/pseuds/danceswithhamsters01
Summary: Based on a prompt from r/dragonageWarden Amell and company head to the Circle of Magi to get help to save the Arl of Redcliffe's son, Connor. Things have not been going well for the Circle in the weeks since Duncan recruited her. Told/seen from Alistair's point of view.





	Going Home Again

_**Prompt 4:** Going Home Again: Your chosen NPC/Companion sees the Warden return back to their origin home once more to gain allies for the Blight- and of course THINGS happen. Write out how they see, hear, and think on those things happening. (For people who choose to write their Couslands- Write out the Howe Confrontation)_

 

 

She had looked at me with a mix of disbelief and anger shortly after the words had left my mouth.

 

“Alistair! You can’t seriously be considering that! He’s a child! There has to be some other way!”

 

“That’s the only way I know of to deal with an abomination,” I tried to defend myself.

 

She glared at me as she tried to stand nose-to-nose. Instead, it was nose-to-chest. Any other day, any other situation, it would’ve been funny. She was deadly serious. Then her idiot friend opened his mouth. The same idiot friend that had put her life in danger, forcing Duncan to invoke the right of Conscription.

 

“There is… another way. We could send a mage into the Fade to confront the demon and sever the connection there. I… I know a way to do it, but it requires blood magic. It would require someone to sacrifice some blood… or rather… all of their blood,” the hawk nosed mage stammered.

 

“No. No more death. You haven’t seen what’s happened outside of the castle. Jowan-- hasn’t blood magic gotten you into enough trouble? Please… don’t add murder to it. Please.” Oh sure, she’d glared daggers at me, but the idiot got the soft gaze?

 

She squared her shoulders and looked me in the eyes. “We’ll go to the Circle. They have lyrium and mages to spare. No one has to die to visit the Fade. No one but that damned demon, anyways.”

 

Us two, the qunari and for some bizarre reason, the assassin who’d been hired to kill us but failed, headed out for Kinloch within the hour. She’d asked the rest to help Jowan “keep an eye on” Connor. She and Morrigan had had… words before leaving. I gathered they hadn’t been pleasant, from the way her fists stayed clenched until we made camp that night.

 

“I… I need to tell you guys something. I probably should’ve mentioned it earlier,” she said, once we’d reached the little village on the docks of Lake Calenhad.

 

“I didn’t exactly leave this place,” she nodded to the massive tower in the middle of the lake, “under ideal circumstances. I don’t think the Knight-Commander will be very happy to see me. He’ll probably want my head on a pike.”

 

For once, I managed to resist the urge to crack a joke. She looked afraid.

 

“He’ll have to just deal with it. We have a treaty with the Circle, in any event. We’re here on official business. Two birds, one stone, and all that,” I said. She may have been acting like a pain in the posterior but she was a Grey Warden pain the posterior. This Knight-Commander could shove right off.

 

The Templar manning the ferry boat hadn’t wanted to give us passage. She’d looked utterly confused when seeing him there, asking where “Kester” had gone off to. Even showing him the official documents hadn’t swayed him. Sten had grumbled and shoved cookies at him. Where the qunari had gotten cookies, I had no idea, but they worked. She was quiet and fidgety during the long ride from shore to island.

 

She stopped at the giant doorway just before we entered the tower and took a several deep breaths. “Here it is. I grew up here. I was trained here. This used to be home.” Her face eased into a blank mask of indifference. She was probably stuffing down a belly full of chaotic emotions, just like I had when we first arrived in Redcliffe.

 

She’d been right about the Knight-Commander. The second he recognized her, he drew his weapon. Sten casually stepping in front of her was probably the only thing that stopped him from charging. Maker knew I’d have second thoughts about attacking a grey giant in his shoes!

 

“The Bas Saarebas Grey Warden has business with the others of its kind in this tower. I advise you to reconsider your intended course of action, human,” Sten said.

 

“The what?” the Knight-Commander asked, reluctantly putting his weapon away after Sten stared at him long enough.

 

“He means me,” Sevarra spoke up, coming to stand beside the qunari.

 

If looks could kill, she would’ve been dead at least seven times over. “Well, look at you, a proper Grey Warden now,” he sniffed with distaste. “We’d heard they’d all been killed at Ostagar. Pity.”

 

Okay, now my blood was starting to boil.

 

She’d practically waved the treaties in his face as she invoked them. Okay, more like his… shoulder? If she could reach that high?

 

“They cannot help you. The tower is lost,” the Knight-Commander sighed. “I’ve already sent word to Denerim asking for the Right of Annulment.”

 

Sten’s hand coming to rest on her shoulder was probably the only thing that kept her from flying at him screaming.

 

“YOU WHAT?! JUST WHAT HAPPENED HERE?!”

 

The story came out with a hefty doses of prodding. Some mages had survived Ostagar and came back to the tower and started a rebellion, and then somehow, demons had shown up. With so many mages and apprentices to be found in the vicinity, of course more than a few possessions had occurred. The Knight-Commander had ordered the doors that led beyond the tower’s entryway to be barred.

 

“Greagoir… how could you? Not all of them could have succumbed to the demons! At very least, Irving and the Enchanters have to be stronger than that! There have to be survivors! Not to mention your OWN MEN who were left behind! How could you leave them to die? To demons, no less?” she said. “I thought you Templars were protectors!”

 

“I am protecting the innocent people of Ferelden from abominations,” he said with a hard edge in his voice. “Templars know that the Maker may require them to give their lives protecting the innocent from your ilk.”

 

“I refuse to believe that there are no survivors!”

 

“It is too much to hope for survivors and to find… nothing,” Greagoir sighed, scrubbing his face with a hand.

 

“Then I’ll look for them myself! I know my master! He’d never give in to a demon while he draws breath!”

 

He looked thoughtful. “I’ll only accept the First Enchanter’s word that all is clear, should you be successful.”

 

She stomped up to the door that was being guarded by two Templars who were nervous wrecks. “I am going to look for survivors. I refuse to give up on my friends and the people I grew up with so easily. The rest of you can come or not.”

 

The elf, Zevran, didn’t even hesitate and took a place beside her. Sten said something about recruiting the Templars instead, earning him a hard glare. I ran my hand through my hair as I took a moment to think. She was dead set on this, I could tell. She got that knot between her brows when she was committed to a course. In for a copper, in for a sovereign, I suppose. I readied my sword and shield. She’d need all the help she could get, Maker help us. In the end, all four of us crossed the threshold into what laid beyond that door. I could hear the barricades being slid into place after the door slammed shut.

 

Our first encounter nearly resulted in friendly fire. One of the Senior enchanters, her name was Wynne, threatened us with death if we meant any harm to a small handful of sobbing children huddled around another mage called Petra.

 

“Maker’s tits, Wynne! IT’S ME! Don’t you recognize me?! You’ve known me since I was five!” Sevarra said.

 

“I was told all the Grey Wardens had perished at Ostagar. I did not see you there during the battle...”

 

“We… got lucky. We were on an assignment and survived,” I said. No need to talk about being rescued by apostates around the stressed out, and very powerful, senior mage.

 

Wynne turned ashen after she heard about the call for Annulment. She insisted on coming with us after powering down her magical barrier over the door so that we could pass. As soon as she put it back up, to keep Petra and the children safe, I got my second look at a demon. I didn’t like it.

 

We went room by room, clearing out whatever monstrosities were lurking in them. The apprentice dorms were… hard. We came across several apprentices who’d been slain. Sevarra or Wynne would whisper names and gently close the deceased’s eyes. I lost track after the 20 th  name. Judging from their expressions, they had not.

 

We found a pair of Templars who’d put themselves in front of a pair of apprentices who couldn’t be more than 10 years old. They’d been fighting off demons for hours, they said. Wynne ordered them to take the kids to the barrier and wait.

 

And then the first abomination showed up. I don’t think I’d ever seen anything so hideous before or since. The part about it exploding after dying would’ve been nice to know beforehand. I’d been blasted across the hall and it was uncomfortable, to say the least. The next room had three of them growling at some poor soul in the corner. I’d never seen Sevarra so angry before. She ran up to them like a madwoman and began letting magic loose. Apparently, she was playing bait. She took off down the hall with the uglies lumbering after. Zevran and Sten followed, taking pot shots. It worked, after a fashion. The abominations died and we didn’t.

 

The kid in the corner was an elf and couldn’t be more than 16. Toris? No, Taris. That was the name Sevarra had sobbed after hugging him. He was shaken, scared witless, but alive. She saw him as something like a little brother, she’d tell me later.

 

We manged to find 10 Templars, 8 apprentices, 1 newly minted mage and 2 enchanters alive before we ran into a sloth demon. Later on, much later on, Wynne and Sevarra would separately tell me there would usually be no less than 30 mages and 15 enchanters at the tower at all times, typically more, and with more out and about the kingdom on loan to various nobles or Chantries or engaged in field research. That number wasn’t counting the senior mages or the apprentices, the latter usually at a minimum of 40.

 

The Fade… well, I don’t enjoy talking about it. That demon would’ve kept us trapped there until we died if not for Sevvy being her usual stubborn self. We woke up nearby that Niall fellow the surviving Tranquil, Owain, had told us to look for. Niall… didn’t make it. She sobbed into his robes while Wynne found the Litany he mentioned.

 

“Tears won’t bring him back. But you can cut down the ones who brought this to pass,” Zevran had said. I shouldn’t have been surprised an assassin would say that.

 

She apparently took that to heart. She didn’t spare any blood mage we ran across, no matter how much they pleaded. Demons didn’t get a chance to do more than utter a couple of words before she attacked. At least she and Sten finally agreed on something.

 

We were near the top of the tower when found a lone Templar caught in some sort of magical trap.

 

“Cullen?!” We tried pressing on the barrier, but it wouldn’t give way. Spells fizzled against it and I couldn’t nullify it.

 

He ranted and prayed incoherently, rocking back and forth. He seemed convinced were were figments of his imagination. During his babbling, he admitted his ‘shameful sin’ of fancying her.

 

Zevran chuckled. “Someone was quite the little heartbreaker as an apprentice! My, my.”

 

So he liked a pretty girl, big deal. Not really high up there on the list of sins, like say, stealing or murder. He probably never even acted on it, right?

 

Tears ran down her cheek. “How can liking someone be a sin? It felt too right to be a sin.”

 

Oh.

 

_OH._

 

Perhaps he had.

 

He snapped and shouted and she flinched as if struck. The words he said were unkind. It wasn’t as if she’d had a hand in any of this mess. She probably would’ve been among the dead here if she hadn’t been in the Tower of Ishal with me. Maker’s sake, she’d almost died at Ishal, anyways. Wynne got fed up and used an angry Chantry Sister tone of voice as she demanded explanations from him about what was going and where the First Enchanter was. It worked.

 

Some mage called Uldred was behind all of this, according to that Cullen fellow. He also urged us to kill anyone else in the Harrowing chamber. The very name being uttered pulled Sevvy out of her sadness. It was… unsettling… to see her face twisted with rage. Apparently that name meant something to her.

 

“You,” she jammed a finger at Cullen, “stay there and OUT OF MY WAY. We’ll take care of Uldred. But we will NOT be murdering any innocents!”

 

“You can’t tell a maleficarum by sight!”

 

“Better a maleficarum live than have innocent blood on my hands,” she began walking toward the Harrowing chamber, Wynne close behind her.

 

There were… more than a few abominations in the Harrowing chamber. And at least a dozen mages tied up in one corner. A bald man seemed to be running things as he spoke playfully to his twisted underlings. Probably Uldred.

 

“This madness stops now,” Sevarra growled.

 

“Ah! Look who we have here! I remember you! Irving’s star pupil. Uldred didn’t think much of you then, and I certainly don’t see your appeal now.”

 

“So, not only are you a murderer, you’re also an abomination yourself,” she said. “You’ve certainly moved up from killing innocent old women and terrorizing young girls.”

 

He laughed. “Still upset over that, are you? Alara was but an insect who got in the way. I’m quite impressed you’re still alive. Unfortunately, that must mean you killed my servants. Ah well. They’re probably better off dying in the service of their betters than living with the terrible responsibility of independence.”

 

“You. Made. Them. Abominations! You may as well have murdered them!”

 

He giggled. “No, child. I freed them! A mage is but the larval form of something greater. Your Chantry vilifies us, calls us abominations, when we have truly reached our full potential!”

 

He gestured to the captive mages. “Look at them. The Chantry has them convinced. They deny themselves the pleasure of becoming something glorious.”

 

“You’re mad! There’s nothing glorious about what you’ve become, Uldred!” Wynne spat.

 

“Uldred? He is gone. I am Uldred and yet not Uldred. I am more than he was. I could give you this gift, Wynne. You and all mages. It would be so much easier if you just accepted it. But some people can be so STUBBORN.” He glared at Sevarra.

 

“You didn’t get everyone. Some stood up to you, monster.”

 

“And what good did that do? I still won.” A small smile curled his lips. “Wait, what do we have here? Why, it’s the First Enchanter. Come say hello to your old apprentice, Irving. Don’t mind the blood. He’s had a… hard day.”

 

Wynne shrieked. “What have you done to him?!”

 

I could feel the room’s temperature dropping. It was safe to say that my fellow Warden was anything but amused. She had a tendency to literally turn things frosty when pissed.

 

“Stop him.. he’s building.. an army. He’ll destroy… the templars...” the mage with the fluffy silver beard croaked out. So that was Irving, eh?

 

“Ahh. You’re a sly little fox, Irving. No one likes a tattletale. And here I thought you were starting to turn.”

 

“Never!” Irving squeaked.

 

“That’s quite enough out of you, First Enchanter. You’ll serve me, eventually. As will you, Miss Amell.”

 

“WARDEN Amell. And I’ll never serve you. You’re going to pay for all the misery you’ve caused!”

 

The blighter giggled. Maker, it was such an annoying giggle. “I have plans for you, little Warden. Your raw potential, with the strength of a demon behind it, would be unstoppable. I can give you power, a new life.”

 

“I can’t think of anything less appealing,” she spat.

 

“Your opinion doesn’t matter. I’ve decided and it will be done. Fight, if you insist. It will just make victory all the more enjoyable.”

And that’s when I saw my very first, front row seat, up close, in-person instance of a mage going absolutely berserk. Let’s just say I was glad she wasn’t aiming at me. I was certainly glad Wynne had the litany, as Sevvy had eyes, and lightning bolts, and boulders, and frosty projectiles only for Uldred. I did wonder why there was no fire in the mix, but I wasn’t the one in charge of spell-casting, now was I? Oh, and Uldred had somehow changed shape into something demonic. Creepy.

 

After Uldred was defeated, both the mages had bee-lined to Irving. Sevarra was weak, exhausted, but more concerned with the old man than herself. Between the two of them, they helped him back down the tower and to where the Knight-Commander was waiting for us. The look of relief on his face spoke volumes.

 

The First Enchanter said that it was done, no more abominations or demons would be coming. The tower was more or less safe. And then that Cullen fellow opened his mouth. He implied that any of the surviving mages could’ve turned to blood magic. I felt the room go cold again, but I could’ve just been standing too close to an irate Sevarra.

 

“I am the Knight-Commander here, not you,” Greagoir said flatly.

 

I spoke up. “Well, what does the knight-commander think, then?”

 

“We have won back the tower. I will accept Irving’s assurances,” he said.

 

Cullen sputtered, but the Commander glared at him. “Enough, I have already made my decision.”

 

Sevarra moved to a corner and spoke with the First Enchanter in private for a few moments. He appeared alarmed but nodded.

 

“Gather the surviving mages and prepare them. Tomorrow, we sail for Redcliffe. The life of a child is at stake,” he said to the Knight-Captain.


End file.
